


Love is... A Mutilated Chicken

by AsheTarasovich (natalieashe), Boffin1710



Series: Love is... [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alec is Cooking, Cats Can't Keep Secrets, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, James is worried, M/M, Q is Exasperated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 07:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10183850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalieashe/pseuds/AsheTarasovich, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/pseuds/Boffin1710
Summary: Alec has ordered a new kitchen gadget and can't wait to try it out.  His partners are concerned about their home.  The cats are just focused on the chicken.(No chickens were harmed in the writing of this story.)





	

Q’s personal mobile buzzed for the third time that morning. Glancing at it, he sighed and answered it. Again.

“Alec, one of us is actually supposed to be working today,” he said tetchily. The code he was wrestling with was fighting back and he needed to get this change live yesterday before the team on the ground totally lost their shite. “I know you’re bored, but please find something to-”

“It’s here!” Alec interrupted. From his tone, Q could tell Alec was grinning from ear to ear. “My cooking gadget. The frying thing.”

That got Q’s full attention. “What cooking thing?” he asked suspiciously. “Did we discuss the purchase of a new kitchen gadget?”

“You worry too much Q. Just make sure you and James are back at the flat by 7 at the latest. I’m cooking dinner.”

“But Alec-” 

Too late, Alec was already gone. Q pushed his unease aside and focused back on his work. It would be fine. It would. 

He hoped…

\-------

Alec unpacked the box and glanced over all of the pieces of his new prize. The instruction manual fluttered to the floor where it lay unacknowledged. Moneypenny had one of these things. She said you just put the food in with a little bit of oil and switched it on. The machine did the rest. Yep, nothing could go wrong.

“Out! Shoo!” Alec chased Amelie and Lovelace, their new kitten, out of the kitchen away from the chicken that sat on the bench. It was in a ready-to-cook bag, all ready to go. Even he couldn’t muck that up. The cats would not be discouraged, however. As soon as the chicken went into the oven, they hopped up onto the counter and settled down to wait for any juicy tidbits to come their way.

“Ok ladies… carrots can be roasted, yes?” Amelie gave him a slow blink that Alec decided was confirmation enough, chopping the carrots into large chunks and adding them into the gadget, along with a dozen of halved mini potatoes. 

“A drizzle? Or a spoonful?” Alec held up a bottle of olive oil and the plastic spoon that came in the box. Lovelace mewed and Alec nodded sagely, “Absolutely. If the spoon came with it, we should use it. Ok… that’s already just to switch on when the oven buzzer goes off.”

Everything was under control. So far, so good.

\-----

“He’s cooking? That’s what you said?” James asked tensely. The flat had originally been his until first Alec, and then Q had moved in with him. In the last year, they had redecorated the kitchen twice after Alec’s cooking went badly wrong.

“He has a new gadget,” Q explained and shrugged when James quizzed him about the nature of the machine. 

“I’m worried. Maybe we should, you know, drive a little faster?”

Q scowled at the traffic ahead of them, crawling to a stop at yet another red light, and then across at Bond who always seemed far too large and cramped for Q’s Renault Clio. Both agents had tried repeatedly to get Q to upgrade his vehicle, but he stubbornly resisted. He had bought the car outright with his first MI6 pay cheque and had developed a rare sentimental attachment to it.

“Unless you have developed the power to magic away rush-hour traffic James, may I respectfully suggest you keep your opinion on my driving to yourself?

\-------

Things were going brilliantly. The hot air fryer slowly turned the carrots and potatoes, roasting them to perfection. The chicken sat on top of the hob in its slit plastic bag waiting for Alec to return it to the oven for the skin to crisp. But how long?

The instructions were printed on the bottom of the bag, underneath the foil tray that held the chicken. The tray was full of basting stock, but if Alec could just carefully… “Got it! 20 minutes.”

Alec turned, chicken tray in hand and went for the oven door, but somehow the juices had escaped the foil tray! Hot, greasy stock flew across the kitchen, pattering onto the kitchen units and all over the tiled floor, turning it into a treacherous skating rink.

“Fuck!” Alec yelled, as the heat burned through his sock and the chicken threatened to make a bid for freedom, sliding through his oven-gloved fingers. “Thank fuck for reflexes!”

He slammed the chicken back into the oven and surveyed the mess. The oil slick seemed to spread as he hopped around searching for a roll of kitchen paper to mop up the worst of it. 

“No! Bad cats! Out of the grease, you’ll track it everywhere and James will go insane!” Amelie had the good grace to at least raise her head at his outburst while licking her lips, but Lovelace had her whiskers right into the tasty oil. “Oh fuck, he’s going to mental anyway!”

Scooping both cats up, one in each large hand, he carried them at arm's length to the bathroom and shut the door on their indignant mewling. “Hush, I’ll be back in a minute. Need to clean this disaster up before they come home.”

An entire roll of kitchen paper spread across the oil slick, soaking up the worst of it while Alec searched out a battery powered spray mop Q had purchased on a whim and had never even taken out of the box. It took Alec less than two minutes to assemble it in his panic, and then he was all set. Greasy kitchen paper dumped into the bin, and a generous squeeze of dish soap to cut through the grease quickly…

\------

“What the hell is that noise?” James asked as he and Q entered the flat. The yowling from the bathroom sounded like a captured banshee, and Q rushed to open the bathroom door to see what trouble the cats had gotten into. Two puffed up balls of fur shot through his legs, deeper into the flat.

“What were they doing in there?” James peered over his shoulder and noticed the wet looking paw prints all over the black marble tiles. “Did Alec try to give them a bath?”

Q shook his head. “Only if he’s completely lost his mind, or invented an all over Kevlar bodysuit.”

They hurried into the kitchen to find Alec calmly, and proudly, disassembling a chicken, hacking the meat from the carcass into a huge pile. A large bowl of roasted carrots and potatoes sat on the counter in a warm bowl, and gravy bubbled on the hob.

“Good day…?” Q asked warily, searching around for signs of a disaster. Nothing. Everything in its place and no smell of burning. And apart from Alec’s dubious carving skills, the meal looked as good as it smelled.

“Yes, all went to plan. Q could you stir the gravy… James, open a bottle of wine, please… I’ll carry this lot to the table.”

Alec returned to the kitchen to find Q had decanted the gravy into a jug and James was clutching the bottle to his chest, but the were both staring at something on the floor on the other side of the kitchen.

“Everything went to plan?” James chuckled.

“No issues?” Q smirked.

“Absolutely.”

James stepped aside giving Alec a view of what had caught their attention. “Then why are our cats fighting over who can lick the kitchen cabinets clean?”


End file.
